design a good transit single-valued function is more complicated than it looks . Consider iconic house decorator Massimo Vignelli ’s 1972 map of the New York City subway : Designed to beeasily readat a glance , the map distorted above - solid ground geography to present a linear , simplify look at rails association and name and address . And people hated it . Vignelli ’s map was replaced with a more geographically accurate map in 1979 , one that was closer to what people think the city looked like , butharder to say .
London ’s transit mapping evolution has taken the paired glide path . Transport for London ’s map of the London Underground [ PDF ] is a sleek , minimalist diagram of where thecity ’s subwaysintersect — and it looks nothing like the city itself . The Thames ends up looking like a game ofSnake .
In answer to aFreedom of Informationrequest from a human being named James Burbage , TfL create a Modern translation of its London Underground map that show precisely where the Tube run , and how far apart the stops are . Unlike the current single-valued function , it shows where the subway runs in relation to park and bodies of water . Now Londoner can see exactly how far across the city they journey each day ( and how far it would really be to take the air through the tube tunnels , as one architecture firmhas proposedfor the Circle Line , see above in yellow ) .
This is what the city sum count like from a geographically accurate linear perspective :
The original TfL function may be easier for plan a subway tripper , especially for out - of - town visitor who might get drop off in the tangled runway lines that wind through the littered newfangled mapping , but the geographically accurate version has the reward of showing where the subway runs in carnal knowledge to above - background destinations — render a whole new perspective for Tube veterans and newbies likewise .
See the full maphere .
[ h / t : The telegraphy ]
All image from Transport for London
